There were worse places to be stuck than my parents’ house. I could have landed in an utter nightmare or some truly awful place to spend a coma.
Oh. My. Gawd!
I couldn’t believe I’d actually complimented my choice of places to have a coma. This couldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be here. I certainly couldn’t stay here. My senior year had been just fine, but it was finished and needed to stay that way. Now on my third night in my past, worry clawed at my chest. Nothing made sense, and I’d come no closer to finding any answers than I had been in the locker room.
What if I got stranded here?
What if I’d never actually been anywhere else?
It had been so much easier to argue away those possibilities with Jody in front of me. Now, alone in a basement bedroom that hadn’t been mine for years, self-doubt and helplessness rolled in around me like an oppressive fog. Either the world had gone crazy or I had, and there didn’t appear to be anything I could do. Giving in to the darkness I could no longer hold at bay, I closed my door and cried myself to sleep.
Chapter Four
My crying jag from the night before must have worn me out, or maybe it was the mental strain of questioning my sanity, but either way I slept until almost noon the next day. Disappointment threatened to consume me before I’d even fully awakened, as once again I suffered through the disorientation of opening my eyes to a past I wasn’t eager to repeat. I used what little fortitude I had left to hold my desperation in check. I showered, then rifled through my dresser drawers for something that didn’t make me look like an aquamarine cross between Britney Spears and Laura Ingalls Wilder before settling on sweat pants and the only hoodie I appeared to own. I fought off another wave of frustration. Who only owns one hoodie?
A knock on the door interrupted my fashion commentary. “Stevie, you’ve got company,” Mom said.
Company? Jody? My spirits rose at the prospect of seeing her again, but they plummeted when I opened my bedroom door to a teenage girl holding a backpack.
“Hey, Stevie. How you feeling?” the girl asked.
“Good. Much better,” I said, trying to act normal while I searched her hazel eyes and pale complexion for some clue as to her identity. My mom stood behind her, and I didn’t want to hint at my confusion for fear she’d whisk me back to the hospital.
“Lucky you have such a hard head.” She laughed, flipping a switch in my mind.
“Yeah, thanks for coming by, Nikki.” Nikki Belliard. Nikki, who would marry Rory’s little brother. Nikki, who’d become an elementary teacher. Nikki, who didn’t know any of that but was still nice enough to check on me.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked.
“Duh.” She handed me her backpack on her way past me.
I glanced at my mom, who nodded her approval before turning to go. “Just don’t get too wound up. You’re supposed to be resting.”
Nikki flopped onto my bed. “You’re welcome for bringing your stuff home.”
My stuff? I looked at the bag. So this was mine, not hers. Good to know. I fought the urge to dump its contents on the bed and rummage through them for clues the way an animal rifles through trash in search of food. “Yeah, thanks.”
“So, do you have amnesia or something?” Nikki asked.
“What? No. Why would you say that?”
“Chill out, I’m just teasing, ‘cause you got hit on the head, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said casually. Did everyone expect me to have forgotten something? My mom told my dad short-term memory loss was common with a concussion, and now Nikki implied the same. How much could I use that excuse without sounding too many alarms? I decided to test the waters. “I actually don’t remember the basketball game at all.”
“Really? Wow.” Nikki propped up on her elbow, and I scooted farther from the bed under the guise of searching for something in my desk. I guess in high school it was common enough to lie around with a friend, but in the intervening years I’d learned straight girls in my bed never led to anything good.
“I just, I forget things until someone reminds me. Then it all comes rushing back. The info isn’t gone. It’s just not up front where I need it.”
Nikki’s expression turned serious. “Did you tell your mom?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “She said short-term memory loss is normal, but I don’t want to worry her with the details. I’m fine really. I was just wondering if maybe you could help me with a few things for school tomorrow.”
“Sure.” She sat up all the way, eager to be of aid. Memories of her filled my mind. She was one of the good ones, a joiner of student council, sports, yearbook committee. She’d know everything. I needed to keep her close without frightening her to the point that she’d tell my mom how much help I needed.
“I know I’m taking theater and AP English with Miss Hadland.” I opened my backpack and spread the books out in front of me. The first one was a Spanish book. Right, four years of Spanish. Whole lot of good that did me. “And I’ve got Spanish with Señora Wallace.”
“Yup, I’m glad she’s back from maternity leave. The sub drove me crazy.”
“Yes!” I said, perhaps overly excited to remember another piece of minutia. “She had a little girl.”
Nikki nodded, unimpressed.
I pulled a trigonometry book from the backpack. “Then trig with Mr. Glass, who also teaches keyboarding, right?”
“Right.”
Then I was out of books. I did a quick count; something had to be missing. “What classes do we have together?”
“Spanish, trig, gym, and study hall.”
Gym and study hall, those were the last two. Whew, I had a full schedule. Now I needed to put it in order. I said a silent prayer that went something like please let me wake up before school tomorrow, please, please, please if there is a God or a doctor out there who can help me, please, please, please save me from high school. But while I’d always suspected God existed, I’d seen little evidence she worked on call, so I decided to hedge my bets by taking a little chance. “Okay, I remember all my classes and teachers, and I remember I have English first, then Spanish, and theater is last, but I forgot the rest of the order.
“After Spanish is trig, then study hall,” she said slowly, all amusement replaced by concern. “Then I think you have keyboarding, but I’m not in that class.”
“And gym comes before I go to theater,” I said, filling in the blank. “See, I told you I could remember once someone jump-starts me.”
“Will you forget again before tomorrow?”
I hope not. I should probably write the schedule down just in case. “No. Once it’s back, it’s back to stay.”
“Good.” She stood up. “‘Cause class was no fun without you on Friday, and I had to sit all by myself at our lockers in the morning.”
Our lockers? They were right next to each other. She handed me another puzzle piece to snap into place.
“See you tomorrow?”
“Probably.” I tried not to sound too terrified.
She hugged me good-bye, and I awkwardly put one arm around to pat her back. I wasn’t much on hugging practical strangers good-bye, but then again, it wasn’t often a stranger also happened to be my best friend.
*
Monday morning hadn’t yet dawned when my mom knocked on my door. I used the darkness of my room to hide my fear and disappointment at waking up in my parents’ home yet again. I hated the sickening feeling that accompanied the realization but hoped I wouldn’t be around long enough to grow used to it.
“How you feeling?” Mom asked, taking a seat on the side of my bed.
“I’m fine.” I grumbled, tired of the question and the lie I always told in response.
“Ready to go back to school?”
“Already?”
“It’s been four days, but if you’re not feeling well enough, you should tell me now.”
I traced the seams of my bedspread with my index finger while I considered my choices.
I didn’t want to go to school. The thought of walking into those crowded hallways or sitting exposed to the world in a little desk while trying to remember knowledge I’d never used almost froze me in panic. However, if I wanted to stay home, I’d face more questions, ones I might not have the answers to. Would I blow my cover? Would my mom run more tests? Would she seek a psychiatric evaluation just to be cautious? I couldn’t risk it. At least at school I could fade into the crowd. At home, I’d be on my own.
I gritted my teeth and tried to compose myself the best I could, given the circumstances and ungodly hour. “I guess I should go to school.”
“All right then, but I want you to promise you’ll call me if you get overwhelmed or start to experience any concussion symptoms, okay?”
“Sure, Mom.” I hoped I wouldn’t have to, but I rated the prospect of being overwhelmed at some point in the day to be pretty high. In fact, I was quickly approaching it now.
An hour later, I stood in front of the double doors I’d entered with Jody just last week. And to think I’d found the experience surreal then.
I took a deep breath and started an internal pep talk I hoped to keep running all day. Keep your head low, get in, get through, get out. You did this once. You can do it again.
I entered the long, locker-lined hallway with my eyes on the floor a few feet in front of me, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. The corridor wasn’t too crowded since I’d gotten there a little early in the hopes of finding more clues in my locker. Now if only I could find it. I had some vague memory of it being on the first floor, so I headed there first. The thing about lockers, though, is they all look exactly alike on the outside, so unless I remembered the number, I was out of luck. I reached the end of the hallway and turned back around, still focused on my feet.
The start of my second pass through the hallway came to an abrupt halt when my shoulder collided with someone else’s, sending us both stumbling back a few feet. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“Sure you are.” Something about the voice caught my attention. Something familiar, but not because I recognized the speaker so much as I recognized the emotion behind it. The low tone held a palpable resignation, as if the person had reconciled herself to some sort of torment while simultaneously resenting the lot she’d drawn. I’d come to recognize the characteristic in New York among broken artists and stockbrokers alike. I’d even felt the stirrings of that depression in myself over the past couple days. But I’d never expected to hear such darkness in someone so young. Curiosity overcame fear. I broke my rule against making eye contact and stared into the haunting brown eyes of Kelsey Patel.
I jumped back and gasped. By now I probably should’ve been used to the shocks that accompanied losing eleven years of my life, but nothing could have prepared me to meet the very living gaze of a dead girl. Apparently, being gawked at was nothing new for Kelsey, who shook her head. “What’s your problem?”
“I, um…I just—” I see dead people? “Concussion.”
“What?”
“I have a concussion. I got hit in the head, and then when you, I mean when I bumped into you—”
“Oh,” her expression softened, and she pushed a strand of straight, dark hair out of her face. “Did it hurt?”
“No, I just…I don’t know. I got disoriented.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be here.” She didn’t have even the hint of an accent, suggesting she wasn’t a first-generation American, but her darker complexion made her stand out against the pasty white winter tones of the rest of the school.
“You have no idea how much I shouldn’t be here right now,” I said before I could check myself.
“Then go home.”
I choked up. Home. Where was that? When was that? And more importantly, would I ever get back there? “I’m fine, thanks.”
Kelsey shrugged, her defenses falling back into place. “Whatever.”
She walked on, but I stood rooted to the floor at my end of the hallway. Why had I thought I could survive this day? I’d always been able to slide by unnoticed, but I had too many variables now. Tears welled up in my eyes. I’d barely held myself together when the worst thing I had to face was trigonometry, but throwing long-dead teenagers into the mix pushed me over the edge. I’d made a valiant effort but couldn’t do it. I’d lost my motivation. My heart rate slowed, and my limbs grew unbearably lethargic. I’d given up and started shutting down. I needed to check myself back into the hospital. I was about to lie down when the office door opened and Jody stepped into the hallway.
So beautiful, so young, so vibrant, she had her fair hair pulled back in a ponytail, giving me a clear view of her intoxicating smile and the hint of a sparkle in her blue eyes. She wore a navy skirt with white piping. I’m sure she thought the ensemble made her appear older, but in reality it appeared she’d raided her mom’s closet. Someday she’d learn students respected her for what she did in the classroom and not because she wore pantyhose to cover her deliciously muscled calves. Someday she’d find her voice and her power, but in the meantime she was stunning in her search. Why hadn’t I kissed her when I’d had the chance?
She turned abruptly, as if sensing me watching her, and all the exuberance faded from her smile. Her expression remained polite but grew increasingly distant the closer she got to me.
“Walk with me?” she asked, her teacher voice clearly negating the question mark on the end of her sentence.
What could I do? Even if she wasn’t an authority figure, I would’ve readily agreed to follow her anywhere.
She headed quickly into the stairwell and then slowed. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, physically. I guess I’m mostly back to normal.”
“What about emotionally?”
Of course she’d pick up on that. I smiled in spite of the turmoil spinning inside me. “I don’t know. A little overwrought, I suppose.”
“How can I help you, Stevie?”
“You have bigger issues to worry about right now.”
She stopped and finally met my eyes. “What issues would those be?”
Shit, why did I keep doing this? I only wanted to help, to let her off the hook. I didn’t mean to imply I had some sort of inside knowledge. “You’re a student teacher. You’ve got lesson plans to write, people to impress, and papers to research. That can’t be easy, especially under the microscopic gaze of Drew Phillips.”
“First of all, you’re very empathetic to think about my workload and academic responsibilities. Not many high-school seniors ever give a thought to what student teachers do.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about college a lot lately.”
She nodded skeptically. “Second, Mr. Phillips is the gym teacher. I don’t know what he has to do with anything.”
I hung my head. I needed to shut up. “Right. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m not back to my old self yet.”
“Stevie, if you don’t talk to me, I can’t help you.”
Trust me. Even if I did talk, you couldn’t help me. I had to give her something else to focus on. “I do need my assignments for your classes on Friday. Maybe you could help me with those.”
She stared at me for a long, heavy minute before sighing. “Why don’t you come in during your study hall, and I’ll go over the lessons with you.”
“Sounds great.” Like a fool I smiled and nodded when I should’ve run. She was the one person at school who was really onto me. I should stay as far away from her as possible, not set up extra time in her presence, but I couldn’t stop myself.
The door to the stairs opened below us, and I glanced down to see Nikki. “Hey, I gotta go, okay?”
Jody nodded. “All right.”
I made my escape before I could do or say anything else. Nikki saw me coming and laughed. “Did you forget what floor your locker is on?”
“Something like that,” I said, giving one last look over my shoulder at Jody, who stood on the landing watching me go. My chest ached at the sight of her. She was too smart and
too intuitive to be put off for long. Sooner or later we’d have to have a serious conversation about the connections we shared, and somehow that prospect wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it should’ve been.
*
The morning went surprisingly well. I sat in the back of the class during English, and Jody, ever the professional, didn’t once hint that anything was going on between us other than a teacher/student relationship. And we were about to start reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, which was totally in my literary wheelhouse. Aside from the occasional stab of attraction toward the teacher, I felt like I had the class under control.
Spanish got off to a solid start because Nikki directed me to my assigned seat without me even having to ask. Señora Wallace told me I could take all the time I needed to catch up on my work. I wondered how long it would take to relearn Spanish. Of course in New York I’d picked up a few words, but I doubted any of the things my Puerto Rican neighbors shouted at each other would ever show up on a high-school test. Trigonometry was even less eventful, with Mr. Glass working through problems on the board. I could’ve been there or not, and he would’ve never known the difference.
By the time I got to keyboarding, I’d begun to think I could actually pull this off. Nikki wasn’t in the class with me, but thanks to my career choice, I had better than average computer and typing skills. Plus, if Mr. Glass’s class-engagement policy was anything like it had just been in trig, I didn’t have to worry about drawing attention to myself. I took a chance on not having assigned seats and chose a computer in the back of the room. I was so engrossed in trying to remember the ins and outs of Windows after being a Mac user for years, I didn’t notice Kelsey attempt to take the seat next to me until she landed on the floor.
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